The men's large hill individual ski jumping competition for the 1972 Winter Olympics was held in Okurayama Ski Jump Stadium. It occurred on 11 February. In the competition on the Okurayama jumping hill, conditions were "variable and unfair" according to a Norwegian account of the 1972 Games published in 2006, and the result is described as "the greatest surprise of all time on the jumping hill". In the first run, the 19-year-old Zakopane mechanic Wojciech Fortuna completed a leap of 111 metres, while Manfred Wolf of East Germany was runner-up after the first run having jumped 107 metres. Jiří Raška, Gariy Napalkov and Tauno Käyhkö, all counted among the favourites according to Jorsett's account, were all more than 12 metres behind, Yukio Kasaya, who won on the normal hill, landed on 90 met